Dr Marwan Kabalan
By Dr Marwan Kabalan
At the time when Moscow hosted the second round of the “Syrian dialogue,” taking advantage of the remarks made by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, about the need to revive the settlement efforts in Syria, and to negotiate for a transition process between the regime and the opposition, most of the analysis which is embroiled in the reasons behind why Moscow mediated in the Syrian conflict after it has kept on backing the regime.
Analyses are linking this issue with the endeavours of Russian President Vladimir Putin since he uses the Syrian conflict as a tool to improve Russia’s relations with the West, especially with the United States, and to get out of the international isolation imposed on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.
Moscow may be actually seeking to contain the tension in its relationship with the West, and reducing the impact of the harsh penalties. However, there are definitely deeper reasons behind the Russian emerging interest to play the role of mediator in the
Syrian crisis.
Interpreting this attempt as a way to improve Russia’s relations with the West seems a simplification of the objectives of Russian policy, especially in the light of the importance of Ukraine for both Russia and the West in comparison with Syria, given how the West is handling these two conflicts.
The West imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia, since the ones imposed by Jimmy Carter in 1980, which was a reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a year earlier — to the extent that these latest sanctions threatened the collapse of the Russian economy.
On the other hand, Russia does not seem to be able to make significant concessions in the Ukrainian conflict, and thus a link between the two conflicts is not meaningful. Moreover, the Russian-American approach to the Syrian conflict today seems closer than ever before.
The two parties focused on “terrorism” in the Syrian conflict. Moreover, Washington called on Moscow directly and explicitly to join international efforts to combat “terrorism”, after the “Charlie Hebdo” incident in Paris.
There is a tendency to separate the Syrian issue from the conflict over Ukraine. The West, at this stage, wants Russia to play a more positive role in resolving the Syrian conflict, especially with the growing concern of the role of jihadi groups that have been attracting supporters from Western societies.
All these factors lead us to believe that Russian behaviour, at this stage in particular, is associated with more fundamental interests to confront the Iranian influence in Syria and to be ready for larger developments in the negotiations over the nuclear file.
Hidden pole of the Syrian conflict
The long-term crisis and the need of the Syrian regime for an external support have formed an essential ground for both Russia and Iran to increase their influence in Syria. But what seemed like a Russian–Iranian consensus to support the Syrian regime was hiding a sharp competition, expressed clearly at one stage through the bombing of the National Security Bureau on July 18, 2012, where four of the most important figures of the Syrian regime — belonging to the Russian military school — were killed.
The Syrian military organisation includes two generations of officers. The first, and oldest, are the one who grew up in the circumstances of the Cold War and the era of alignment with the Soviet Union. They were trained in Russian military bases, obviously with Russian arms. The second generation, the young ones, who belonged to the military organisation in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been increasingly influenced by the Iranian school, especially after the July 2006 war.
At this stage and as a result of the sanctions imposed on Syria for its stand concerning the US invasion of Iraq and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, Syria became increasingly more dependent on Iranian support, including military aid.
A treaty was signed for defence cooperation on June 16, 2006. Despite that the articles of this treaty were kept a secret, its effects are showing in many ways. Including a number of Iranian military advisers in Syria, the Syrian army was turning from reliance on large military teams that are in accordance with the Russian perspective that implicated huge mechanical blocks during the battle to form up fighting smaller units that apply tactics closer to the plans of the special forces and guerrilla warfare (the method used by Hezbollah).
Certainly with the outbreak of the revolution, the influence of the Russian school on the Syrian military organisation had faded, as opposed to the growing role of Iran and its influence.
More importantly, Iranians — because they prefer to work in the context of informal workflow since they do not generally trust institutions that they did not build or supervise intellectually and politically — are usually deliberately relying on setting up branches with militias’ tactics outside the framework of the state bodies and official institutions.
As in the case of Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran has succeeded in taking advantage of the circumstances of the Syrian crisis to structure military, economic and security bodies parallel to the regimes.
These structural bodies took root and gained a growing influence over the traditional institutions in the army, security, the public sector and the government, which had fallen, historically, under the Russian sphere of influence, keeping in mind that tens of thousands of Syrian civilians and military personnel have studied and graduated from the former Soviet universities, institutions and academic centres.
With the growing trend of Iranian-American cooperation to fight ISIS which extends from Iraq to Syria, the concern has become outsized over Moscow that this could mean that Russia will gradually go out of competition with regard to the Syrian conflict and will lose the output of four years of political, financial and military investments in Syria.
Allies or enemies?
The other reason behind the Russian move is the fact that it is increasingly likely that an agreement will be reached over Iran’s nuclear programme, which is a gateway towards more amicable relations between Tehran and Washington.
Moscow is watching with concern the repeated bilateral meetings that are showing some closeness between the Iranian and US foreign ministers. Some of these meetings were conducted in open air, which means they were far from the eyes and ears of the Russians. The actual negotiations are no longer taking place within the international six parties’ meeting, but switched to bilateral negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
The Russians looked like a cheated spouse, when the secret talks that took place in the Sultanate of Oman between the Iranians, the “ally”, and the “Great Satan” were revealed. This resulted in reaching the Geneva agreement in November 2013.
Russians, on the other hand, became aware that they are no longer present at any regional agreements after Iran crosses the nuclear obstacle, especially in the light of the tension between Russia and Obama administration over Ukraine.
The influence in the region seems divided at least outwardly between Iran and America. The attempt of President Putin to catch up with the developments, trying to strengthen Russia’s position in the game through closer cooperation with Egypt doesn’t seem successful in bringing about a fundamental change in the regional landscape. On the other hand, the Russians consider Iran as a potential rival in the field of energy. Iranians took advantage of deterioration in Russian-European relations, because of the Ukrainian crisis, and offered to be a substitute for the supply of Russian gas to Europe.
Although this offer cannot be translated at the moment for political, technical and logistical reasons, but Europe does not hide that this is one of the main causes behind its urgency to resolve the nuclear issue with Tehran, as it has an interest to balance the Russian energy with the Iranian one. From its side, Iran is aware that Russia, until the Ukrainian crisis, used the last card of its negotiations with the West, especially in regard to the Bushehr reactor, which Russians have been dragging their heels to build and did it after ten years. Russians also refused to hand over to Iran their 300 missiles, which were paid for in full.
The Iranians have expressed a lack of confidence in Russia on various occasions, such as preferring to transfer 20pc of their enriched uranium stocks to Turkey instead of Russia, in the framework of the Istanbul agreement that was reached in 2010, but wasn’t implemented because of Washington’s refusal to abide by it.
Iranians don’t forget that Russia has voted in favour of all four Security Council resolutions regarding their nuclear programme, including resolution 1929 of 2010, which imposed harsh economic sanctions against Tehran, noting that Turkey, which was then a non-permanent member of the Security Council, voted against.
Everyone is aware today that Russia’s interest lies in the continuation of the Iranian-Western ram, that Iran must stay outside the international oil market as long as possible, and that Western investment remains far from the oil and gas sectors of Iran, which is a major competitor of Russia, especially in the European and Asian markets.
Moscow cannot hide its discomfort to just go into the possibility of a return to the days when Iran was the “policeman” of Washington in the region and its regional agent. This fear is growing especially these days as the Obama administration is tightening the rope around the Russian bear’s neck.
Putin’s response to the Iranian-American “wedding”
President Putin’s visit to Ankara in December 2014, his second in two years, formed a significant milestone in the relations between the two countries. The visit came at the time of a Turkish-American divergence, in anticipation of a US-Iranian rapprochement.
The visit also came at a time when relations between Moscow and Ankara witnessed increasing strains with the West. It was remarkable that Putin chose Ankara to announce the cancellation of the construction of the southern gas pipeline (South Stream) to provide Europe with gas. Work started on the pipeline in 2007. It was to pass under the Black Sea to Bulgaria bypassing Ukraine. So far, Russian gas giant Gazprom has spent $5bn on this project.
Putin decided to convert the line to Turkey, and increased the amount of gas that is pumped to it by 3 billion cubic metres, and a discount of up to 6pc of world prices. This has put Turkey in a stronger position in comparison to Iran that imposes high gas prices. It also enabled Turkey to dispense with part of the Iranian supplies.
As Turkey refuses to abide by European and US sanctions that have been imposed on Russia because of the Ukrainian crisis, other countries are looking for proposals of cooperation after Russia pledged to build the first nuclear reactor to generate electricity in Turkey.
Russia today is the largest trading partner of Turkey with a bilateral trade volume of $33bn. These two parties are aspiring to raise their bilateral trade volume to $100bn by 2020, especially after Turkey becoming the main food supplier for Russia, due to the boycott of European products, in response to the sanctions against Russia. Trade between the two sides has multiplied 30 times from 1999.
We can say that Turkey is the biggest economic beneficiary of the tension between Russia and the West, as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, and cheered the strong competition between Russia and Iran over Syria. This will never mean that Turkey will go out of the Atlantic or that Russia will enter a strategic alliance with Turkey, there are significant differences between them concerning Syria, Ukraine, Cyprus, and Greece. Russia and Turkey are preparing for the impact of the potential US-Iranian rapprochement in case they reach a nuclear deal.
A re-look at the overall strategy
During the past decade and beyond the Arab Spring, concern about the rising Turkish influence, the arrival of the currents of political Islam to reach the power in many states in the Arab region and its potential impact on the territories of Russia’s majority Sunni Muslim areas, has stood as one of the most important determinants of the Russian position in relation to the Arab Spring revolutions.
Russia has found itself automatically on the side of the Iranian camp, which was defending its expansion in the region, in the face of the forces of the emerging Sunni Islamic political groups.
As the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown in Egypt, Islamists in Tunisia are no longer in power, the Shia forces controlling Iraq regained their balance after the shock of Mosul, and after the Western position became clear for backing the Syrian regime militarily, Moscow will tend, more likely, to play the American game for balancing the Sunni with the Shia influence (Turkey vs Iran), after having been, during the last decade, using Iran as a card for negotiating with the West, before it took advantage of Iran completely to face the rising Turkish expansion in the light of the Arab Spring.
From here, Russia began offering itself as a mediator in the Syrian conflict, after it had been an essential party of the conflict, because, otherwise, it is certain that Russia’s investments in Syria will be lost on the threshold of the Iranian-American consensus, which will push Russia entirely out of the eastern Mediterranean.
The writer is a columnist and academic researcher.
